Celebrating the great Canadian game. Tracking the NHL, the Canadian teams and a lot more!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Bill Simmons for the prosecution

Of the volume of items that have come to fill space since September and the start of the latest in disruptions to our fall rituals, the most recent item posted to the always informative and entertaining GRANTLAND site perhaps is the best examination yet, as to how dysfunctional today's NHL is.

Written by Bill Simmons, the best selling author and the founder and current editor in chief of GRANTLAND, the Bettman piece outlines the lengthy resume of disaster brought upon the NHL by its Commissioner, a searing indictment of a league that has taken a game with so much upside and for yet the umpteenth time, left it battered, bruised and abandoned in an ice filled ditch.

While the documentation of the league's past history is entertaining in a (Man, really, they did that?) kind of way.

The most interesting concept for hockey fans from the article would be the almost dream like sequence where we have a sweating Gary Bettman in front of an impeachment panel. Eyes no doubt shifting, lawyers standing by to interject, as the Commissioner tries to explain how his many miscues could be construed as having been good for the game.

At this point of the latest mess that the NHL has found itself in, the impeachment concept is perhaps the only sliver of hope for a game (and its fans) that has suffered for so long under the Three Stooges like stewardship of both the NHL and NHLPA.

You have to start somewhere we guess, may as well be at the top.

The Grantland article is a must readfor sports fans and business observers alike, dragging out the NHL's blue print and laying waste to it in short, concise punches, each sentence another scathing indictment as to just how messed up the league really is.

For further research, we also recommend the Grantland podcasts, where detailed examinations of all sports can be found, occasionally even items on hockey, though we imagine that hockey falls further and further off the sports radar in the US by the day.

If we ever do get to the idea of an impeachment, lets nominate Mr. Simmons as the lead prosecutor, he seems to have the evidence trail quite handy.